


once you filled my hands with roses (then you gave your heart to me)

by thispapermoon



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017), The Worst Witch - All Media Types
Genre: Accidental Discoveries, F/F, Oh My God, Two witches in love, hecate doesn't mean to snoop, springtime kisses, there was going to be more conversation and less kissing, they don't even realize they're flirting, why are they like this, you know how it goes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-09 23:36:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17414714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thispapermoon/pseuds/thispapermoon
Summary: She’s about to move on when a sheaf of papers catches her eyes, nestled between the book her finger still rests upon and the next tome over, a large, square book on dandelion magic. It’s the curl of the ink that stops her. The way the dark lines spool into familiar letters across the elegant stationary that just peeks out from its hiding place in the shadowed space between the books.All too familiar.With shaking hands, she works the papers free and stands staring, heart in her throat as she looks down at the pages she holds.Her name.Black on pale pink.Dear Hecate,It’s in Pippa’s hand and her eyes jump to the date of some thirty years before, written in delicate lettering at the top of the page.****Hecate accidentally discovers thirty years worth of letters Pippa wrote to her but never sent.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i know, i know, i owe updates on my other fic but i've had a rough few weeks and just wanted to write something that didn't take much strategy. so have this very unplotty, very fluffy very, errrhm. yeah. ok. smutty bit of...of...
> 
> they're just really in love, okay? 
> 
> okay.
> 
> (very little editing happened here so yikes and apologies)

The nervous twist in her stomach never quite goes away. No matter how many teas they have. No matter how many chessgames played.

It’s fragile, this reconciliation between them.

Hecate has to remind herself of the damage she has caused, the ways in which she’s hurt Pippa. Reminds herself that she has very little right to be her friend. To call herself as such.

Especially when she wants to be more. Knows she wants to be more. Just as she had thirty years ago.

And somehow her selfish, wayward heart has never learned. Never has been able to face that she will never be what Pippa wants.

And yet here she is, on a fresh spring day. Sitting with Pippa. In Pippa’s sitting room. In Pippa’s school. Tea between them, and Pippa is talking about something or other, and Hecate is trying to focus, but it’s difficult when her eyes keep dropping to trace along the edge of Pippa’s bodice, drawn to the soft skin there, to the way it pulls delicately over her collarbones.

She tries not to imagine kissing there.

She fails, and breaks her gaze away, eyes dropping to her teacup, cheeks blushing.

“Hiccup?”

Caught out, she looks up to find Pippa considering her, a small frown pulling up between her eyebrows.

“Are you quite alright?”

Hecate sniffs. “Of course.”

Pippa’s frown deepens. “Oh, it’s only that I’m sure you haven’t heard a word I’m saying. You didn’t object once when I said that I was adding a modern medicinary unit to our potions lab.”

Eyebrows raising in horror, Hecate finds herself gaping. “What on earth would possess you - ”

Pippa laughs. “Ah, see, you _weren’t_ listening.”

Hecate shrugs, a sharp twitch of shoulders.

“I apologize.”

“Are you alright?”

Nodding, Hecate shrugs again, casting around for a diversion. “I was just thinking about the girls, I suppose.”

“Mildred Hubble?” Pippa smirks, eyes amused, and Hecate huffs.

“Enough to distract anyone.”

Pippa looks like she’s going to say something, she casts an eye over Hecate and opens her mouth, but a maglet ding interrupts them.

“It is a Saturday,” Pippa sighs, “but my deputy and I are expecting our new astronomy supply witch today. She’s to cover while our current is on maternity leave and is flying in from out of town. We weren’t sure just when she would arrive. My deputy will get her settled, but would you mind awfully if I popped down to greet her?”

Hecate waves a hand. “Of course. I can depart if you - ”

“No,” Pippa says, and Hecate wonders why she blushes a little. “Oh no. You are not going anywhere until I’ve had a chance to redeem myself.” She nods at the chessboard and Hecate steeples her fingers, gazing a Pippa over the tips of her black nails.

“I’d hate to give you false hope that you would be able to _redeem_ yourself - ”

“Oh, hush, you.” But Pippa’s smiling, nose wrinkling as she obviously remembers the shameful trouncing she’d received at Hecate’s last visit - thought Pippa had blamed it on the open bottle of witches brew, Hecate knew she hadn’t had much. She still wonders just what had been on Pippa’s mind that night to drive her to such distraction and result in such a dismal loss.

She looks at Pippa speculatively and shakes her head. “Go before you are late. I will stay here and contemplate my further victory.”

Pippa swats the air and rolls her eyes. “Alright, fine. Back soon. Stay out of trouble, _Miss_ Hardbroom.”

Hecate cocks an eyebrow. “Always.”

With a swift grin - and a fleeting wink that sets Hecate blushing - Pippa disappears from the room and Hecate sits back in her chair, contemplating her emotions rather more than the chessboard.

Being near Pippa is intoxicating. She hardly knows why she is doing it. And yet it’s like an addiction. A strange desire to linger too close to a flame that she knows will surely burn her.

She sighs and rises, suddenly restless, and makes a circuit of the room.

It’s large, and bright, and outside the windows the blue sky expands off towards the horizon as jeweled toned flowers unfurl their fragrant blooms across the grounds below.

She moves through the bookshelf, eyes sweeping over titles, a dark nailed finger alighting now and then to shift a book back and peer more closely at the cover. She’s not looking for anything specific, or so she tells herself, though she feels a small thrill at cataloging Pippa’s personal interests in this manner. It’s strangely intimate, and yet far less intimate that discussing such interests in person, and she sighs a bit as she tucks a book on modern magic back into its place on the shelf.

She’s about to move on when a sheaf of papers catches her eyes, nestled between the book her finger still rests upon and the next tome over, a large, square book on dandelion magic. It’s the curl of the ink that stops her. The way the dark lines spool into familiar letters across the elegant stationary that just peeks out from its hiding place in the shadowed space between the books.

All too familiar.

With shaking hands, she works the papers free and stands staring, heart in her throat as she looks down at the pages she holds.

Her name.

Black on pale pink.

_Dear Hecate,_

It’s in Pippa’s hand and her eyes jump to the date of some thirty years before, written in delicate lettering at the top of the page.

She blinks. Her throat tightens.

_Dear Hecate,_

Slowly, she takes a breath. Closes her eyes. Opens them. Her fingers soften on the page, her knees growing unsteady as she reads again.

_Dear Hecate,_

_I don’t know where you’ve gone or why you’ve left. I can’t stop crying and no one understands. They can’t understand. Couldn’t possibly. Please come back, please tell me that you’re safe at least. There’s so much I wish I could say to you. So much I would say if you would only give me a chance._

_Please. Please. Please come back._

_I love you,_

_Pippa_

Mouth like sandpaper, Hecate sways on the spot. fingers rustling at the packet of paper, shuffling the letter aside to the next. Her name burns on the top of the page and she clenches down on rising heartbreak as she reads a letter dated soon after the first.

_Dear Hecate,_

_I thought perhaps you might be in trouble. But now that you merely do not wish to see me or to speak with me. And I know that it must be because I must have hurt you in some deep way._

_I don’t know what I’ve done, what pain I must have caused for you to leave like this. I’m so sorry. For whatever it is. Please let me make it right?_

_Please. I miss you._

_Love,_

_Pippa_

Sucking in a breath, she shifts the page aside and reads the next before she shuts her eyes, tears threatening to break free until she opens them again and shuffles the papers, reading frantically through jagged, heartbroken, pain filled words, demands for explanation, desperate apologies that Pippa had poured out year after year and apparently never sent.

She flips through the the pages with a greedy longing. She finds she’s desperate to be so close to Pippa’s mind, her emotions. But the feeling sits sickly atop the guilty horror that rises with her as the frequency of letters slow, the anger fading, the wistfulness increasing the more her eyes dash from page to page.  

_I’m not sure why I’m writing this, I woke up from a dream tonight and wanted to tell you -_

_I don’t even know why I write these letters anymore -_

_Why do I keep writing these - I miss you. I love you._

_Dear Hecate,_

_Remember that time we snuck out to the roof one night and took our brooms a ride. The moon_ _was so clear, we flew so high. It felt as though I could have reached out and touched it. In the moonlight you looked to beautiful. I think that was the night I knew for certain that what I felt for you wasn’t ever going to change. That I’d fallen in love with you -_

Hecate finds herself slowly moving to the settee, completely absorbed, hand to mouth, trembling as Pippa’s words fill the emptiness that has hollowed out her heart for thirty years.

_I know you’ve made it clear by now that I no longer have a place in your life. I wish I knew what I’ve done. I spend so much of my time reviewing every moment we spent together leading up to the broomstick competition. Did you know how I felt - is that why you left? All these years later and I feel sick to think that I made you feel like that. That you couldn’t stand to be around me, knowing what I am and how I felt for you. How I’d fallen for you._

_Hecate, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry._

There’s a gap for a number of years and Hecate wipes at her eyes, her breath filling the quiet chamber as she moves through the the last few letters, grown more frequent again as of late.

_\- tomorrow I shall see you for the first time in thirty years. I could hardly believe that you would have agreed to have me at your school, at what is now your home now, I suppose. I feel certain Ada Cackle would have told you I was coming. And I have to wonder at you allowing it. Perhaps you wish I wouldn’t. But I have to see you. I have to see the woman you’ve become. And put this behind me. I have to face that you don’t love me. Then perhaps I can learn to move on -_

There’s a click and she jumps, tears blurring her vision too much to see clearly, but there’s a pink shape framed within the doorway and she gasps, trying to hide the letters away as she blinks rapidly to clear the moisture from her eyes.

Pippa comes into focus.

Awfully pale.

Awfully still.

Her eyes don’t leave the papers in Hecate’s trembling hands and Hecate tries to stutter out an apology but finds her voice has utterly left her. There doesn’t seem to be enough oxygen in the room and the longer Pippa goes without moving the more she trembles in her seat, fingers tightening against the inky admissions that hang thickly in the air between them.

She tries to work her lips into a _Pippa_ , but can only manage soft a helpless sort of noise instead. Pippa’s eyes fly from her hands to her face, her expression quite otherwise frozen.

Pippa steps forward and the door swings shut between her, the sound like a gunshot through the silent room as they stare at one another.

“Those are my letters,” Pippa says slowly. Her voice is closed off and tight in a way Hecate has never heard and Hecate wants to tell her she didn’t mean to come across them. That she should have stopped herself. That -

Her voice comes to her all at once.

“They’re addressed to me,” she whispers, voice rough with tears.

Pippa flinches.

“They’re private.”

Hecate finds her hands loosening on the pages, fingers coming down to stroke over the last line she’d read before Pippa’s entrance.

“Have you?” It comes out as a demand and Pippa bristles.

“Have I what?”

Swallowing, swallowing, Hecate’s mouth fights around the words. “Moved on?”

Color flares across Pippa’s cheekbones, her eyes turning sharp and bright, as if she’s just been struck, and her arms come up to cross about her body.

“You’ll be displeased to know I haven’t.” Pippa drops her eyes, looking miserable and Hecate’s breath leaves her in a rush. A sharp exhale of realization.

Slowly she leans forward and gently sets the letters on the table before rising. Slowly she puts one hesitant foot before the other, the floor between them like a span of time. Slowly she crosses. Comes to stand before Pippa.

Slowly Pippa meets her gaze.

“Pipsqueak,” she breathes, fingers coming up to trail alongside Pippa’s cheek. She can’t bring herself to touch. Least this be a dream and Pippa shatter like glass, like her heart, beneath her touch.

Pippa’s eyes close.

Hecate can see how tightly her breath comes, the way her chest moves through the press of desperate grief and she doesn’t know what to do. Doesn't know how to heal the way Pippa gasps out her name like a aching wound.

And she thinks her heart might survive until Pippa chokes out a desperately frightened sounding, _“I’m sorry,”_ and Hecate feels her whole world tilt as it utterly splinters.

Her hands come up and she anchors them on either side of Pippa’s face, palms meeting warm wet cheeks, fingers tense and stretched back as if unsure if she’s allowed to touch. But she needs Pippa to know, now, after everything, needs her to _know_.

“Displeased,” she gasps, heart beating wildly as Pippa tries to duck her head. Words come slowly, tugged from her around painful breath. “The only displeasure,” she manages, “is that I’ve kept my feelings from you. That I made you think - ”

She breaks off, reeling, and Pippa’s eyes blink open.

“Made you think - ?” It’s hardly a whisper and Hecate feels her own body pull taut in distress at her inability to explain. She looms above Pippa, hands still on either side of her face, eyes smarting as she tries to ground herself.

“I’ve been such a fool.”

Something moves within Pippa’s eyes, liquid and unsure. She takes a ragged breath, her arms loosening slightly from their protective grip.

“Pippa,” Hecate breathes, frozen above her, unblinking and suddenly incautious.  Her fingers move to alight on Pippa’s skin, thumbs collecting tears. “The way you feel - “

Pippa chokes on a sob, eyes closing, head shaking, but Hecate holds her steady.

“I always have - “ she tries again around unsteady breaths. The world is speeding up around her now, too bright colors, and too loud thoughts that nip and crowd her mind. She tightens her grip and hangs on, forehead coming in to rest against Pippa’s own.

Every muscle in her body aches with tension and when Pippa’s arms unfold and tentatively slide around to grip her shoulder blades she shudders at the shock that sparks across her skin.

“I don’t understand.” Pippa’s breath is nearly against her lips, Hecate can hear the tears in her voice. Her fingers slide to cradle the back of Pippa’s head, pads of fingertips pressing into soft hair.

“You think,” Hecate tries, the words scraping along the back of her throat, “that I don’t love you.” Her voice breaks on the word love and Pippa’s eyes flutter open.

Nearly against her, Hecate can feel the way Pippa trembles.

“You left,” she whispers, confusion and pain clouding her features. “You left and I never knew why.”

Hecate makes a low sound, one of pain and frustration at her past self. “I thought,” she begins, fingers tightening in Pippa’s hair, “that you could never feel for me, the way I felt for you.”

Pippa’s lips tremble, and for the first time, Hecate sees a spark of hope flare to life, feels it come to life within herself as well, know that her own eyes must reflect back at Pippa the very same fragile wanting.

“Hecate,” Pippa moves a hand up her back, fingers light when they find Hecate’s cheek and Hecate closes her eyes at the sensation. Her body tenses without intent at the pain that courses from her heart through her blood. The heartbreak, the longing, the years lost to despair and loneliness.

“Hecate.” Pippa’s voice is stronger, firmer, her fingers more insistent and Hecate opens her eyes.  

“I’ve been in love with you very nearly my whole life.” The words come too quickly, spoken low and with an urgency that surprises her, and she drops her hands and draws back, only to be caught by Pippa’s hands still on her cheeks.

“Oh.”

Pippa tugs her closer. Brings her in until they stand toe to toe, foreheads once again nearly touching.

“Oh, Hiccup.”

Hecate trembles, brings hesitant hands up until she finds Pippa’s hips, slowly she lets her fingers fall, one by one, until she’s holding her gently between her palms.

“Pippa, I - "

It’s too much and she nearly turns away again but that would mean breaking out of Pippa’s gaze. And she’s too warm. Too warm, and wanting, and overwhelmed with need to move as Pippa moves closer still.

“This is what you want?” Pippa murmurs, eyes searching her own. Hecate can see in them the way years of fear and believed rejection has made PIppa uncertain, hesitant, and she slides one hand up to cover Pippa’s hand where it still rests upon her cheek.

“If you’re asking, I would not be displeased if you were to kiss me.”

Pippa’s smile is like the sun flashing out from behind dark clouds, but Hecate only has a moment to marvel at it before Pippa moves in, her lips closing the distance until they’re almost, almost just touching Hecate’s own.

The ghost of sensation ripples through Hecate’s body and she sways, nose brushing Pippa’s until Pippa presses up and closes the distance.

 _Oh_.

 _Oh_.

It’s like starfire. Flaring through her. It’s like the end of all things, and the beginning of all things, and all the pain of the past, and all the hope of the future, all in one burst of flaring light.

Pippa’s mouth is warm and gentle, her lips soft as they part under Hecate’s, growing bolder as Hecate relaxes against her.

 _Oh_.

They break for breath and Hecate stares down at Pippa, quite undone.

The hand under her own twists and Pippa moves, twining their fingers together and bringing Hecate’s hand to her lips which she kisses, softly, reverently, eyes never leaving Hecate’s own, before bringing their joined hands to rest between them, just above her heart.

“I think you might know by now, but I love you.” Pippa’s eyes are bright and so earnest, and Hecate feels her lips tug up in nearly incredulous joy.

She swallows around the swirl of emotions that cloy her words and tug them from her one by one. “And I you.”

Again Pippa’s smile is too fleeting to reveal in, and again she moves in and kisses Hecate, more instantly this time, more desperately.

Hecate gasps against Pippa as Pippa’s tugs at her bottom lip, as Pippa’s tongue comes out and brushes there as well before growing bolder. Hecate finds her hands on Pippa’s hips again, something frantic growing within her at having Pippa so close to her in this way. To feel her underneath her palms, the shape of her, the taste of her.

She makes a sound into Pippa’s mouth and Pippa echoes it back, tongue slipping against her own and suddenly Hecate’s knees feel very weak indeed.

Pippa draws back, face flushed, eyes bright and nearly laughing.

“Alright there, Hardbroom?”

Hecate sniffs, trying to right herself, but really all she can do is tighten her grip on Pippa’s waist.

“It’s all rather a lot,” she manages finally.

Immediately Pippa touches her cheek, fingertips gentle. “Too much?”

She shakes her head. “No. No. I just never thought - “

She can’t finish but doesn't need to. Doesn’t have to.

“I didn’t either,” Pippa whispers, and Hecate tugs her in and risks a kiss. It deepens and Pippa arches towards her, arms wrapping around Hecate’s neck and suddenly Pippa’s half laughing, half crying.

“Pippa - ?”

“It’s all alright - it’s all alright now, isn’t it?” Pippa steps back and takes her hand and Hecate hesitates.

“I don’t see how I can ever make up for the years of pain I’ve caused.”

Pippa’s head bows but only for a moment and when she looks back up at Hecate there’s a fire in her eyes that makes Hecate knees only weaken further.

“I’m yours,” Pippa murmurs, her gaze locked on Hecate’s. “Always have been. Would like to be for the rest of my days if you would have me. But I want you to be mine. To let yourself be mine. Will you let me care for you? Love you? I need you to be sure. I couldn’t - I _can’t_ \- lose you all over again.”

Hecate steps in and her hands meet Pippa’s, tangling with them down at their sides before bringing them up so they’re palm to palm.

“Yes,” she breathes, and feels how the word, the promise thrills through her. She lets her forehead drop to Pippa’s. “Yours.”

It’s a submission she’s never allowed herself, and she takes in a sharp breath at how it feels to admit to it. “Please, make me yours. Only yours.”

Pippa leans into her and her fingers untangle from Hecate’s to clutch at her back. “Hecate,” she gasps, mouth moving to meet hers, “Hecate.”

Hecate loses herself in the kiss, in the warmth that turns to heat, and then to sharper and sharper need. They sway together on the spot, stumbling a little and Pippa laughs and nips at her earlobe.

“I’d like to take you to bed,” her breath is hot in Hecate’s ear and Hecate arches, making a sound that only fuels her desire to give into to this. Give into Pippa.

She nods and Pippa cups her face, kisses her gently, filled with promise. Hecate half expects her to transfer them, but instead she reaches down and takes Hecate’s hand, turning so she her eyes stay on Hecate’s as she leads her across the sunbeam strewn floorboards of the living room and through the door to her bedchamber.

Afternoon sunlight casts the bed in warm hews and Pippa tugs her on, slowly, as if she can’t take bear her eyes away from Hecate’s, as if she’s savoring the way Hecate moves after her, follows behind her.

They come to the bed and Pippa turns, fingers twining in Hecate’s as she kisses her sweetly, and Hecate gasps at the dreamlike quality of it all. The way the breeze blows in from the open window, how the cherry blossoms dance in the tree just beyond, tinting the light in the room pale pink.

And Pippa looks at her, bright eyes, and soft smile, and her fingers are in Hecate’s hair, and Hecate’s hair is down around her shoulders, and Pippa’s hands are tangling in it, guiding her in for kisses that leave her breathless and trembling.

Their eyes meet again and Pippa nudges their noses together. Bites her lip and trails a finger down the chain of Hecate’s watch. Slowly works it over her head and turns, sets the heavy timepiece on the bedside and Hecate can only stand and watch the way she moves, the curve of her hips and the slope of her shoulders. The way Hecate’s hands go automatically to her waist as Pippa returns.

She kisses Pippa then, a pulsing warmth spreading from around her heart and down deeper, flaring into heat in her belly and she gasps at the sensation. Beneath her hands she can feel the texture of Pippa’s dress where she longs to feel only skin and her hands find the thin band of Pippa’s belt, traveling forward until she feels the jeweled clasp beneath her fingertips. The back of her knuckles brush against Pippa’s stomach and Pippa makes a noise into her mouth and Hecate repeats the movement, this time with intention, and Pippa breaks the kiss, eyes wide, lips swollen as she shudders.

They stare at each other and Hecate slowly slips the clasp free, guides it away from Pippa and doesn’t know where to go from there. But Pippa smiles and takes it from her, tossing it to a chair near the bed as she steps into Hecate’s space and kisses her deeply.

Sure fingers stroke over the zipper that runs down her back and Pippa kisses over Hecate’s jaw to her ear and whispers _is this alright?_

And Hecate can only nod helplessly, breath coming faster as Pippa slowly tugs the metal downwards, as her fingers slip beneath the cloth and ease the halves forward until the dress is slipping down to pool around Hecate’s ankles and Hecate’s arms are coming up to cross about her chest on instinct.

Pippa let’s the dress drop and her hands are gentle on Hecate’s elbows.

“You’re gorgeous,” she whispers, bottom lip tugging between her teeth and she keeps her eyes on Hecate’s, thumbs soothing across shivering skin. And slowly Hecate let’s her arms fall loose, steps back and out of the dress, and when Pippa’s eyes move over her, it’s like a phantom touch, a promise of what is to come. She can’t help the little sigh that Pippa draws from her just by looking at her so.

Her hair falls around her, down her back like a wave, and Pippa moves in and gathers it in one hand, kissing her, and kissing her, and kissing her, and Hecate finds her fingers on Pippa’s own zipper. Mirrors Pippa’s movement until suddenly Pippa stands before her in the room, framed by the light, and the cherry tree in the window just beyond, and Hecate can feel the tears slipping down her face in hot, salty tracks, but can’t put into words how her heart fills at the sight of such delicate and precious beauty.

Old grief, and a sharp fear that this won’t last, rises in her like a brine-soaked tide but Pippa has her back in her arms in the space of a step and their skin meets, warm and soft and Hecate buries her face in Pippa’s neck, splays her fingers across Pippa’s freckled back and holds her tight.

When she’s calmer, Pippa brushes a kiss to her forehead, brushes tear-damp hair back from her face and when she kisses Hecate on the nose, Hecate lets out a shaky, hopeful breath. Takes Pippa’s hand and kisses her fingers, her palm, the pulse point of her wrist.

“I’ve been dreaming of this,” Pippa sighs. “For an awfully long time.”

“I love you,” Hecate chokes out, tensing a bit at the newness of saying the words aloud. Saying them and feeling peace, feeling them in her bones without long held shame.

Pippa smiles. Smiles and tugs her in. Fingers skate under the straps of her undergarment, easing down the left then the right. Kissing her, and kissing her, until her mind spins and dances like the falling cherry blossoms just beyond the window. Caught in the breeze. Eddied upwards to further and further heights.

Her breath leaves her in a shudder as Pippa’s fingers slide down and find the claps at her back. The garment follows the path of her dress as Pippa slowly eases it away with tender fingers.

“Hecate,” Pippa breathes, and her name sounds like a prayer. And Hecate can only wonder at it, can only wonder at the sound and the way that Pippa looks at her. So sure, eyes so filled with love it nearly makes her weep.

And Hecate stands before her in the light, fingers twisting together. But she let’s Pippa look, and Pippa eyes are soft, her smile is soft, and when she reaches for Hecate and once more pulls her close her, her skin is soft as well.

But Hecate wants more.

Now more than ever before.

Now, in this almost dreamworld, she has to remind herself is real. That Pippa is real. And she craves her.

Her fingers work Pippa’s bra free and Hecate can’t look away, can’t stop the feeling that rises in her chest, the fireworks that turn her senses into starlight, and Pippa’s skin is back against her own, breasts soft and warm against her own, and Hecate can’t help the cry that cuts the air at the sensation. She pulls Pippa closer, trembles, and shakes, and presses against her, hands exploring Pippa’s soft back, mouth insistent against Pippa’s own.

Pippa’s hand is on her waist and it burns like a brand. Her thumb strokes upward and then down and Hecate can’t prevent the motion of her body, arching forward into Pippa as Pippa urges her back, guide her gently to the bed and eases her down.

And Hecate goes willingly, hair fanning out around her head as Pippa moves with her, hovers over her, comes to rest above her, one hand light against the arm that rests just above Hecate’s head. Pippa leans back and Hecate can feel her warm heat against her stomach, gasps at the sensation, but Pippa moves Hecate’s left arm up to join the other, hands still gentle and looks down at her, eyes warm, lashes wet.

“Mine,” she whispers. And Hecate can feel her eyes widen. Can feel the way heat builds deep within her the longer Pippa looks. The longer Pippa keeps her in such vulnerable a position. And Hecate feels the way her body reacts to stay so willingly beneath her, to let Pippa look without blushing, without hiding herself away.

“Mine,” Pippa whispers again and kisses her and Hecate melts into the kiss, arching up against Pippa, mouth open in willing supplication. She let’s Pippa kiss her thoroughly before growing bolder. Tugging Pippa’s lower lip into her mouth, she releases it only to let her tongue move with purpose, intent to make Pippa feel the same pleasure that twists with growing pressure between her legs. She shifts beneath Pippa and Pippa’s hands move off her wrists to catch her balance as she falls over Hecate with a gaps. Eyes dark. Breath quickening.

Hecate moves her hands to Pippa’s waist. Pulls her down against her and Pippa’s eyes fall shut at the motion. Hecate can feel the way her hips rock automatically down against her, just for an instant, and Pippa’s eyes open again. Her teeth work her bottom lip, her cheeks pinking.

“Is this - “

Hecate arches up and kisses her, takes Pippa’s lip between her own teeth, her hands repeating the movement of pulling Pippa down against her and Pippa gasps, hips sliding back and then circling forward and Hecate falls back to the bed, pressing up against her, hands falling to scrape along the covers as she arcs up before sliding them back up over Pippa’s stomach to find her breasts.

Pippa stills at Hecate’s touch, hair down and tangled, eyes widening, but Hecate shakes her head.

“Please don’t stop.”

And Pippa holds her gaze. Brings warm fingers up to cover her own, guides her fingers across her chest as her hips begin to rock with purpose. Hecate’s fingers find Pippa’s nipples and Pippa’s eyes shut only for a moment before they blink open, her mouth parting in concentration as she moves against Hecate.

She makes a sound that might be words, and Hecate slowly trails a nail around Pippa’s nipple. The dark nail against the pink of Pippa makes her think of dark ink against the pages of Pippa’s letters, and suddenly she needs more of the contrast, more of seeing the way they seem to fit together, seem to make sense despite their visible contradiction.

Pippa gasps as she drags a nail around the her nipple once more then down and her abdomen ripples when she comes across that particular spot just below Pippa’s stomach, causing her to jolt against her, eyes squeezing shut, and Hecate can’t help but laugh as Pippa curses.

“Merlin,” Pippa exhales, and she looks so utterly undone that Hecate can only push herself up to kiss her, hands insistent on Pippa’s hips as she turns her and presses her down into the sheets.

“I don’t know why,” Pippa says on a breath as Hecate kisses her way across her clavicles, savoring the fantasy come to life, “but I thought maybe you’d be shyer.”

Hecate draws back a looks down at her. “Should I be?”

A warm hand cups her cheek and Pippa’s eyes sparkle. “After all these years, knowing that you want me, it’s - “

Her voice breaks and Hecate inhales, chest tightening as Pippa can’t go on.

“I never thought I’d get the chance,” she admits. “In my imaginings I’m hardly shy at all. And that’s all I thought would come of this. I - “ hesitating, she shakes her head, cheek pressing against Pippa’s palm at the movement, “I never thought I could actually be so bold - ”

“I like it.” Pippa cuts in, eyes dark. “As much as I want you to be mine, I hope you know I’m very much yours.”

And Hecate’s breath stutters on an exhale as Pippa moves so Hecate falls into the cradle of her hips, as Pippa opens beneath her and Hecate can see the stark want across her face.

“Merlin,” she breathes back and Pippa laughs.

They look at each other, small smiles melting into a solemn intensity as Hecate ducks her head and kisses Pippa. Pippa kisses back, something growing in the air between them and Hecate let’s her fingers trail down, lets the brush down Pippa’s ribs and to her thigh, lets Pippa whimper a breathy acquiescence into her mouth as Hecate comes to the only fabric left between them.

Hecate breathes a spell and the barrier is gone, Pippa suddenly warm beneath her fingertips, opening to her, arching towards her, pressing against her. And Hecate can’t help but look down between them at how her fingers move within Pippa and then up, eyes locking to Pippa’s own as Pippa bites her lip and arches.

And Hecate is nearly overcome with how it feels to be inside her, to have her beneath her, to move with her as Pippa’s fingers tighten against her shoulders and her movements become more frantic, voice rising as Hecate’s fingers find a spot that has her arching and panting.

She comes with one hand in Hecate’s hair, the other across her own mouth as she splinters, calling out against her hand, fingers clenching against Hecate’s scalp.

 _“Fuck_ ,” Pippa exhales and Hecate blushes. Her fingers hit a sensitive spot as she slows them and suddenly Pippa’s tensing again, one hand dropping to hold Hecate’s hand in place.

“ _Fuck_.”

It’s awfully profane, terribly indecent.

And Hecate can’t help but laugh.

It’s full, and pleased, and filled with a delight she is certain is not proper in the least, but Pippa’s looking up at her with hazey, happy eyes, and her hand is still between Pippa’s legs. And Pippa is gorgeous, and trembling, and pink-cheeked, with golden hair curling around her shoulders and Hecate - Hecate wants the moment to last forever. Wants to remember this always. And when Pippa relaxes enough for her to move and gestures her up so she can kiss her, she wants to remember that too.

“Did you,” Pippa breathes against her neck, “happen to use a Bone Begone spell?”

Hecate know she must look terribly uncharacteristic, she can’t stop the way her lips keep tugging up, can’t stop from burying her face in Pippa’s shoulder in embarrassed delight.

“It would be a highly improper use of magic.”

“Mmmm,” Pippa sighs, and Hecate shivers as she strokes an hand down and up her bare back. “Well, I think I just discovered something that you’re even more exquisite at than spell work.”

Hecate blushes deeply, hiding still in Pippa’s shoulder and Pippa laughs and her hand makes the journey up to Hecate’s cheek, stroking there until Hecate finally unwinds enough for Pippa to turn them onto their sides until they’re nose to nose.

“You amaze me,” Pippa whispers, and Hecate shakes her head. “You do.” There’s a gentle kiss against her forehead, followed by Pippa’s lips trailing down to brush across her eyelids, and then her cheeks, before finally finding her mouth.

The kiss is dizzying, and Hecate whimpers, finds herself moving closer as Pippa’s fingers close over her hip bone and urge her onto her back. “Darling,” Pippa murmurs, and her breath is warm against the shell of Hecate’s ear, her tongue traveling along the edge. Her mouth moves just under and behind and Hecate whines.

Pippa pushes herself up and pulls Hecate’s thigh over her own hip, leaning down to kiss the corner of Hecate’s mouth as Hecate gasps.

“I want to make you see the stars,” Pippa whispers, and Hecate nearly chokes as Pippa pushes a firm thigh up against her.

“Is this alright?”

Hecate blinks, trying to find her bearings and Pippa pauses, lets her adjust. There’s a pulsing heat where Pippa’s skin meets her own and Hecate reaches down and pushes helplessly at her undergarment and Pippa catches up her hand. Brings it in for a kiss as the fabric vanishes.

Suddenly, all there is in Hecate’s world is Pippa. Pippa’s skin pressing against her own, Pippa’s mouth, trailing lower, down over her breasts, Pippa’s fingers following her mouth, attentive against her nipples as she moves lower still.

“Pippa,” Hecate gasps, as hot, open-mouthed kisses trail down her stomach, as Pippa nuzzles against the crook of her where her hip meets her thigh.

“Is this alright, darling?” Pippa’s eyes are warm and earnest and Hecate nods at her, words caught behind the emotion that sits in her throat and Pippa’s fingers move down one thigh before trailing up the inside of the other and Hecate’s head drops back.

It’s better than spell casting, she realizes, and never thought anything could be better than that. But Pippa’s mouth is growing ever nearer where she needs her most, warm and consistent and - _oh_ \- it is magic. Beyond magic. Pippa’s tongue finds her center, moves up to a spot that makes Hecate bow off the bed and tremble, hand finding its way to Pippa’s hair as Pippa wraps an arm around her to keep her still.

Their eyes meet and she can feel Pippa smiling against her, can see the warmth and affection in Pippa’s eyes and her head drops back, as Pippa suddenly fills her and Hecate arches up and surges down against her, noises spilling from her lip as Pippa works her higher still.

It’s intimate, so intimate, and yet so perfectly _right_ that Hecate can’t stop saying Pippa’s name, the consonants tumbling from her lips as her fingers tighten in Pippa’s hair. And Pippa moves her free hand over to tangle with the one Hecate has clenched within the bedsheets.

She holds her hand tenderly. And her fingers twist within her. And her tongue causes Hecate to thrash and tremble on the bed, her hips moving in greater urgency until all rhythm is lost. And she’s arching. And calling out. And blinded by shards of light that are brighter than stars, brighter than galaxies, and she falls back to earth, lost in a firefly-daze, skin pulsing, pleasure ripping through her every last nerve.

Everything is still bathed in light, Pippa’s hand still gentle within her own, and she can’t see, can only breath Pippa’s name and gasp for breath. She feels Pippa shift up the bed as her fingers slip out to curl protectively around Hecate, soothing the tender, still throbbing flesh. Her nose brushes against Hecate’s neck, her hand never leaving Hecate’s own as she pulls her own arm around her.

“Take your time,” she hears Pippa whisper. Feels a soft kiss against her forehead and takes trembling breath after trembling breath until at last the world comes into focus around her.

“Hi,” Pippa smiles, tremulously, perhaps even more brightly than the flares of celestial light that are finally retreating to the corners of Hecate’s vision, and Hecate can’t help the tears that leak down her cheeks in steady tracks at the sight.

“Pippa,” she whispers back, suddenly unsure if it’s all just been a dream.

Outside the wind shifts direction and a few cherry blooms sweep in on the breeze and swirl around the room.

Pippa smiles, and leans down and kisses her. Hecate smiles into the kiss. Smiles into the light.

Pippa hums and pulls back, looking so at ease, and so pleased. And Hecate, for perhaps the first time in her life, feels the very same.

She reaches up and cups Pippa’s cheek. Kisses her shyly.

Pippa laughs and curls against her, dark eyes happy, and Hecate knows that there will be more to talk about, words to say, apologies and explanations to be made. But for now it’s enough to hold Pippa in her arms, to bring her close and kiss her temple.

To lay amongst the sunbeams and finally feel at peace.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh,” Pippa gasps, eyes unfocused. “That was so much better than what I wrote.”
> 
> “Indeed.”
> 
> Hecate kisses her forehead and unsticks a letter from where it’s attached itself to the skin of her arm and the back of the couch. It’s a potions recipe that Pippa’s written out, asking for her advice.
> 
> “Geranium root,” she murmurs and lets the page fall from her fingers as Pippa kisses her.
> 
> “Took me years to get there,” Pippa grouses.
> 
> “Worth the wait?”
> 
> Pippa’s eyes go soft. “Very.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHOOPS. I WROTE MORE. 
> 
> Apologies that I'm playing hookie from my other fic. I just really wanted them to talk more in this fic (though uh they still do a lot of uh not uh talking) and I needed to write this to feel like the fic would be complete. 
> 
> Thanks for all the comments, I hope to reply this weekend. They have been life savers over the course of a very terrible week and I'm so darn grateful to all of you. 
> 
> xo

Evening comes up gradually around Pentangles, casting the pale stones in amber hues and scattering blue light through the large casement windows.

The sky is just gathering darkness into its corners when Hecate finds herself perched on Pippa’s settee, wrapped in a soft, silk robe, nose buried into the teacup Pippa’s just pressed gently into her hands.

She has a distinct sense of unreality. As if all the colors of the world are suddenly in sharper focus. It somehow makes her feel as if she’s walking in a dreamlike state. Everything is heightened, she realizes; the hot porcelain against her palms, the way the cool air from the window feels against her skin in contrast, the way she’s aware of her body, sore and sensitive, conscious of everywhere the robe touches her. Of everywhere Pippa has touched her.

She blushes and looks up to see Pippa watching her over her own teacup. Pippa, in a cream robe that’s hardly tied up properly at all. Hecate can see the curve of her beneath the thin cloth. Something tightens inside her, low and pleasant, and she bites her lip, hands suddenly unsteady as sets her teacup on the table, smoothing her own robe into place and feeling shy.

Beside the teacup, the letters lay strewn where Hecate had deposited them earlier, and she rests a finger against the top one, looking over at Pippa uncertainty.

“I shouldn’t have read them. Not without your permission.”

From her corner of the sofa, Pippa straightens, her teacup joining Hecate’s as she scoots over and looks down at the papers. Something in her face has become unreadable and Hecate’s swallows.

Pippa reaches out and touches her finger, taking Hecate’s hand in her own. She squeezes it before releasing it to take up the pages with careful fingers instead. Hecate watches her face, and Pippa sits for a moment, fingers curled around the edges of the letters.

“You know,” she says finally, voice pitched low, “every word I wrote I wanted you to read.”

She glances at Hecate quickly before her eyes drop back to the page. “At the time. In the moment. I never dared send any of them, but I imagined that somehow, by some magic, you would sense what I was writing. I used to imagine an invisible thread between us, emotionally, I suppose. And that wherever you were, whatever you were doing, you would sense me out there. Missing you.”

She looks up and a tear drops down her cheek, catching the dying light and sparkling like a diamond. And Hecate breathes around the grief in her chest at Pippa’s words and at the sight.

“I made you think I didn’t love you.” She says tightly, fingernails digging into her knees, shame blossoming in her stomach. “I didn’t read the letters you did send me. I returned them unopened.”

Pippa lets out a shaky breath and Hecate reaches out, uncertain, but when her hand meets Pippa’s, all hesitation is lost. She tangles their fingers together and presses Pippa’s hand with her own. She can feel the paper beneath their joined fingers where they rest upon Pippa’s lap.

She looks down at the stationary: pink and black. Looks at their entwined fingers: pink and black. Squeezes Pippa's hand harder.

They sit, arms touching, fingers locked together, and slowly Pippa’s head drops to Hecate’s shoulder.

“I wasn’t brave enough to say what I wanted in those letters anyway. Some of them were awfully angry.”

“With good reason.”

Pippa shakes her head and her cheek rubbing against Hecate’s arm. “Did you really think me so indifferent to you?”

Hecate freezes and glances down to find Pippa looking up at her. There’s something so vulnerable in her expression that Hecate stiffens, fear and anger at past self surging through her like a tide.

“You thought I’d left because I’d found that your feelings were not -” she swallows around pain, “- indifferent.”

Pippa’s hand moves from hers and her head leaves Hecate’s shoulder as she gathers the letters. Hecate watches as she bites her lip, looking down at them for a moment before seemingly making a decision.

She turns and looks at Hecate steadily.

“You know where I am now. Emotionally.”

Hecate bites her lip but Pippa’s hand comes out and brushes down her cheek. “You _know_.”

Slowly, Hecate nods.

Pippa holds the pages out. “If you want to?”

She sounds uncertain and Hecate reaches out and covers Pippa’s fingers with her own.

“Is that want you want? Pipsqueak? ”

Pippa laughs a little at the name, eyelashes wet, and sucks in a trembling breath.

“I think so.” She shakes her head. “Yes, I would. If you would like to. Thirty years is a long time. A lot of what I felt when writing these letters doesn’t stand, but the fact that I love you - that I’ve always loved you - does. I want you to be sure of it.”

Hecate takes the pages and Pippa hovers beside her, as if uncertain. And for the first time, Hecate realizes just what this change between them means. Heart thudding, she shifts so her arm moves to Pippa’s back, and she gathers her against her side, warming when Pippa comes willingly and relaxes against her. And Hecate’s eyes prick with the newness of allowing herself this long forbidden act.

Pippa sighs a little and Hecate takes a breath, balancing the pages on her knees as Pippa reshuffles them to the beginning. Back to when they were so young.

She turns her head and presses a kiss to Pippa’s hair before focusing down, eyes sweeping over the curves of Pippa’s elegant cursive.

The first letters she’s read in full and she thumbs past them before settling in to read.

It’s heartbreaking. And informative. And Pippa sits quietly beside her, gathered in her arms as Hecate reads how sitting just like this, together, is what, more than anything, Pippa has ever wanted. From time to time she murmurs questions, and Pippa answers softly. From time to time Pippa cries. And sometimes so she does.

And the years pass by all over again, this time spent together.

There’s one letter where Pippa’s writing slants across the page unevenly and Hecate frowns, trying to make sense of it.

“Oh,” Pippa says, and sounds embarrassed. “I was drunk. I’d just tried to - to,” her voice quivers, “sleep with someone.” She continues haltingly. “I thought it would help me get over you. It didn’t go well. And it wasn’t you and it wasn’t what I _wanted_ \- "

Hecate turns her head and captures Pippa’s lips and Pippa makes a sound into her mouth that has Hecate trembling in turn. She breaks away, forehead touching Pippa’s as they fight for breath. “I’m sorry.”

Pippa shakes her head and moves to turns the page. “You didn’t know. It’s not your fault.”

 _But it is_ , Hecate wants to say, cheeks burning.

The next letter is angry, and heartbroken, and Pippa flips past it as well. “As I said, not everything I wrote is reflective of what I feel now. I won’t have you blaming yourself.”

Her head comes back to Hecate’s shoulder and they read a letter about Pippa’s holiday to a lake instead. How she’d spent the whole time wishing Hecate were there. It’s a terribly romantic re-imaging and Hecate finds herself in tears.

“Can we?” She whispers.

“Can we what?”

“Go on holiday?”

Such a statement shouldn’t sound so broken, but Hecate’s voice wavers on each word.

Pippa beams, her eyes wet as well. “I’d like that. Very much.”

They look at each other, and Pippa darts in and kisses her on the nose.

Cheeks pink, mouth tugging up, Hecate reads on.

There’s a letter that sets her laughing helplessly. An irate, late-twenty-something Pippa, dashing off a furious roasting of witches who have complete disregard for proper broomstick etiquette.

_I cannot believe that The Widdershins Manual for Flying is disregarded such an egregious degree these days. I mean, surely, everyone knows that Section Fifteen, Paragraph Four states that when faced with a broom jam, witches with brooms on the port side get to merge first! I swear by The Code, I’m going to start carrying copies of the Manual and begin lobbing them at silly witches who don’t know their sky skills the way you do. The carrying part, I mean, not the lobbing. Though if I were to picture it…._

Pippa rolls her eyes.

“Stop laughing. I thought _you of all people_ would understand that flying etiquette is terrible these days!”

Unable to help herself, Hecate laughs harder, filled up with relief and love, all the emotions of the day coming out as she sags against Pippa who continues to grumble about sky skills, or the lack there of.

Hecate sobers as the next letter turns dark; wretched and filled with pain, broken longing, and self hatred. Pippa goes very still and very quiet.

They talk for a long time after, Hecate’s fingers pressing down hard against the letters on the paper, as if she were trying to stop them bleeding. As if by doing so she could heal the bloody, wounded mess of Pippa’s heart. When they’ve talked themselves out, eyes red rimmed and fingers coming to clasp with to one another, they hold each other for a long while, simply breathing. 

There’s a series of letters that are terribly explicit, all the things Pippa’s imagined feeling. Imagined making Hecate feel.

And Hecate feels her pulse quickening, brain spinning as Pippa presses against her as they read.

Heat sears through her and they fall into each other, inspired, mouths, and tongues, and fingers frantic as they live out thirty years of pent up wanting. Around them, the letters fall like confetti, and Pippa arches up beneath her, kneels before her, sits astride her. Kisses her, and kisses her, and kisses her, until they are spent and exhausted, twined together on the couch as the night air cools their sweat slicked skin.

“Oh,” Pippa gasps, eyes unfocused. “That was so much better than what I wrote.”

“Indeed.”

Hecate kisses her forehead and unsticks a letter from where it’s attached itself to the skin of her arm and the back of the couch. It’s a potions recipe that Pippa’s written out, asking for her advice.

“Geranium root,” she murmurs and lets the page fall from her fingers as Pippa kisses her.

“Took me years to get there,” Pippa grouses.

“Worth the wait?”

Pippa’s eyes go soft. “Very.”

They lay together and Hecate can’t help the smile that curves across her lips. “I wish I had committed to paper all the times I thought of you. Wanted you. Missed you.”

“Tell me.”

There’s something in Pippa’s voice, a desperation, and Hecate realizes that Pippa’s been so vulnerable with her, let her in to her mind and heart so much, and that despite the intensity of what she feels, she has not found voice or time to do the same.

And so she talks. Hands soothing up and down Pippa’s naked back, robes long discarded to the floor below, she tells the story of thirty years of longing.

Of seeing opal earrings in a shop window. Of almost buying them.

Of smelling roses. And leaving a conservatory in tears.

Of long, sleepless nights where her thoughts had wandered, and her hands hand wandered, and Pippa’s name had cut the darkness, falling from Hecate’s lips as she’d fallen to pieces.

She tells her of avoiding her at every convention, every conference. Of missing her so desperately that she’d lost sleep. Lost weight. How she’d always taken comfort in that it had been for the best.

“But it wasn’t,” Pippa sniffles, eyes wet, hands warm against Hecate’s cheeks.

“No. It wasn’t.”

She brushes a finger over Pippa’s lower lip and Pippa shifts against her. “Hecate -”

“I know.”

Pippa sighs into their next kiss and settles against her, hands mindless as they sweep over Hecate’s skin. They’re quiet for a long spell, both savoring the nearness of the other.

She must sleep then, for when she when she awakes Pippa has covered her in her robe and is back in her own as well, standing by her desk, sorting through some papers.

Hecate stirs and she looks over with a smiles.

“Hello, sleepy. I’ve arrange to have some dinner brought up.”

Nodding, Hecate sits and pulls her borrowed robe around her before tying it securely. The letters still lay scattered, and she sets to work gathering them and reordering them in her lap.

Pippa passes, moving to shelve a book, and drops a kiss on her head. Leaning back into the cushions, Hecate watches her with lazy, satisfied eyes before returning once more to reading as Pippa bustles around the room completing various tasks.

There’s only a few left before the years where Pippa stopped writing. They simply detail Pippa’s days. Small, irrelevant stories and musings. Hecate reads them eagerly all the same then comes to a realization.

“You were lonely.”

From where she’s bottling their used tea leaves to be used in potions later, Pippa looks up and frowns.

“This series of years - about ten or so ago - ? You were quite lonely.”

Pippa sighs. “I was always lonely. Without you.”

But Hecate squints back at the pages. “More so here. And you stopped writing just after.”

She thumbs through the series of letters again and watches the dates jump.

Pippa comes to sit beside her and takes the letters, setting them aside. “I was preparing to open Pentangles. I worked all the time. Day and night. And yes, it was a lonely period, I admit.”

“But look at all you achieved,” Hecate whispers, cupping Pippa’s cheek.

When Pippa bites her lip, Hecate’s fingers move insistently, pulling her chin up until they’re eye to eye. “I know we don’t agree on everything. But I am so proud of you, Pipsqueak." She blinks back tears. “If only you knew how proud.”

Pippa sniffles and leans into her touch. “I stopped writing because I’d given up that I would ever be this happy.”

Tears gather in her eyes and Hecate brushes them away with gentle fingers.

“You are happy then?”

“More than anything.”

Pippa tilts her head and Hecate kisses her reverently, sweetly.

“And are you happy?” Pippa whispers when they part.

Hecate tugs Pippa in and kisses her again, a little off center, a little desperately.

“I hardly deserve to be. But I am.”

Pippa traces her lips with a finger, thumb soft on Hecate’s bottom lip before she presses her own lips there once more. “You deserve more than you’ll ever give yourself credit for, Hecate Hardbroom.”

She smiles at Hecate’s blush, eyes sparkling. “I’d like to make you a very happy woman.”

“Witch?”

“Woman,” Pippa intones, slowly sliding forward, hand suddenly on Hecate’s thigh, inching higher.

Hecate’s noise of surprise and arousal is lost as Pippa’s mouth covers hers. She shudders as Pippa shifts closer, warm, silk covered skin pressing against her own. The real weight of her is dizzying and Hecate gasps as Pippa settles in her lap, tongue tracing patterns against her own in a way that creates an ever growing heat low within her.

There’s a chime and a tray of food appears on the table.

Pippa pulls back, nose bumping Hecate’s and she smiles. “Can you believe that we have all the time in the world now? That we no longer have to hold back or wonder?”

Slowly, Hecate shakes her head.

“We could eat dinner, or, we could kiss some more.” Pippa grins, and Hecate feels a surge of heat at Pippa giving name to what they’re doing.

“Just kiss?” She murmurs, leaning and and brushing her lips against Pippa’s sternum. Pippa gasps, fingers tightening on Hecate’s shoulders as Hecate turns her head and kisses the exposed curve of Pippa’s breast where the robe gapes open.

Pippa makes noises then, noises that pull Hecate closer and closer to the peak of pleasure and she parts the robe further with careful fingers and takes Pippa in her mouth, hands wrapping around Pippa’s back to hold her steady.

Pippa cups the back of her head and Hecate’s mind goes blank and blissful. All there is is the feel of Pippa under her tongue, the breathy gasps that fill the air, her own thudding heartbeat. She looks up and their eyes meet. Pippa’s gaze is soft and gentle, tender and full of trust, and Hecate kisses her way across to Pippa’s other breast, swirling her tongue around her nipple before resting her forehead directly above Pippa’s heart.

“I love you,” she breathes. And means it more and more with every passing moment. “I love you.” She looks up, desperate, and Pippa gazes down at her fondly.

“Hecate Hardbroom.”

“Hmm.”

Pippa leans down and kisses her, pulling her to a better angle until she can ease her back against the couch cushions. She rests on her forearms above her and smiles down at her.

“Will you stay the night?”

It’s not what Hecate expects her to say and she blinks.

“I - I hadn’t thought about it.”

“Well,” Pippa murmurs and kisses the corner of her mouth. “Start thinking.”  Her hand somehow has worked its way between them and Hecate gasps.

“I - I suppose,” she tries distractedly, Pippa’s movements making it particularly hard to concentrate, “I suppose I really ought to. Hadn’t I?”

Her knees fall open around Pippa as Pippa’s fingers slowly tease her.

“Yes, I do suppose you had better.”

Hecate lets her head fall back and tries not to squirm.

“This isn’t typical of me, you know.”

“What isn’t?” Pippa breathes, mouth rather busy just behind Hecate’s ear. Her fingers are purposely avoiding where Hecate wants her most and Hecate tries to keep her dignity as her hips surge upwards, searching for greater pressure.

“This. All of this.”

She doesn’t mean to sound so vulnerable, and Pippa pulls back to look down at her, fingers stilling.

“Hecate -”

“I like it.” She gasps. And realizes that she does. “I -” she struggles to find words. “I rather like - _please, Pippa_.”

Pippa’s eyes glint and she kisses Hecate gently, and then a little filthily. Her fingers resume their almost-there-but-not-quite-enough ministrations.

“Ah, and do you like this?” She moves a little bit closer and Hecate keens.

“Yes,” she whispers, ashamed. But Pippa laughs and and looks so happy that she relaxes, lets her hips loosen, lets her legs part wider. She holds Pippa’s gaze and pushes her hips intentionally upwards.

Pippa makes a low sound and heat sears through Hecate’s stomach.

“Pippa.”

“And do you like this?”

Pippa’s fingers make contact and Hecate arches, breath stuttering.

“ _Yes._ ”

“Good.” Pippa drops a kiss against her collarbone. “And this?”

Head spinning, Hecate nods, arching up from the cushions as Pippa’s fingers find focus, drawing gasps and little moans that Hecate can’t bother to be ashamed of, not when Pippa is haloed in light above her, not when her whole body is taught and trembling, pulled to the brink until she tips over the edge and comes with a shout, face buried in Pippa’s neck.

She regains her senses gradually, lies limp and boneless, and Pippa looks far too pleased.

“You always were a show-off,” Hecate mutters, but there’s no bite to her words.

Pippa beams.

“Yes, well.”

She pushes herself up and slips off the couch, working the open robe down and off her shoulders until it drops to the ground.

“I’m _your_ show-off now.”

She preens, turning on her heel and strutting in the direction of the bedroom.

“P-pippa?” Hecate stutters, eyes fixed on her retreating form.

Pippa merely looks back over her shoulder and winks.

“Coming?”

Hecate pushes herself upright and follows her on shaky knees.

“ _I_ already did. _Miss_ Pentangle. I do believe it to be your turn.”

Pippa’s delighted laughter floats from the bedroom and Hecate smiles, cheeks very pink, dinner and letters forgotten on the coffee table.

She shuts the door behind them.

______

When she wakes, her body feels nearly weightless. The bed beneath her is deliciously soft and she’s keenly aware of where the air touches her naked skin. Of how Pippa lies tucked against her.

Something blooms warm in her heart at the feeling. Around them the room in bathed in moonlight, turned silver and gray with inky black edges, and she takes a slow breath, savoring the way it feels to have Pippa’s skin against her chest.

Again, the feeling of being in a dream comes to her, and she tries to reconcile how quickly her life has changed, how the hours since she found the letters have flown by, against the years and years of pent up longing. Years that paced by in slow, steady clock ticks. Uniform in shape, and size, and habit. Uniform in missing Pippa.

And she does miss her. Even now. Even after hours of whispered confessions, and breathy affirmations, and quiet utterances of adoration.

She presses her nose against the back of Pippa’s neck and draws in a long breath, body still languid from sleep as her hand slides down Pippa’s waist to her hip. Pippa shifts a little, breath remaining calm and even, and Hecate trails her hand back up, biting her lip when Pippa makes a small sound.

Her hand trails down again, backs of her fingers skating over skin before sliding around to brush up over Pippa’s stomach. Pippa makes another sleepy noise, body moving unconsciously against Hecate’s wandering hand.

She brushes her fingers back down, finding the spot just under Pippa’s navel that she’s come to learn as Pippa’s weakness. She stroke the skin gently there as Pippa nearly mews in her sleep, pressing back against her. And Hecate slides her hand higher, finding Pippa’s breast and cupping it in a gentle hand before making the return south. She repeats the journey and Pippa’s breathing shifts, her body bowing forward before pressing back against Hecate's with a sigh.

“You’re rather sleepy,” Hecate whispers.

Pippa mutters something that sounds like “ _don’t stop_ ,” her voice muddled from slumber and Hecate smiles into her hair.

 _My love_ , she wants to call her. But she holds it in, focusing instead on how soft and willing Pippa is beneath her hand. Half asleep Pippa is an even less inhibited Pippa, and Hecate thrills at how easily her movements draw forth small sounds of enjoyment, how Pippa’s movements are involuntary, instinctual, an unfiltered reaction to how Hecate touches her.

And Hecate knows it’s not just because Pippa is semi-conscious, but because Pippa knows that it’s her. That Hecate has been entrusted with the gift of Pippa’s desire. Of her fragility and her vulnerability. Eyes smarting at the honor, Hecate presses her lips to the back of Pippa’s neck, hand sliding down to hook under Pippa’s thigh and draw it up to rest atop her own as she presses between Pippa’s legs from behind.

Pippa forms a word that sounds more or less like _Hiccup_ and Hecate smiles, rocking Pippa back against her as her hand returns to tracking its course up Pippa’s stomach.

In the moonlight, Pippa’s skin shows silver, and Hecate watches her, suddenly awake and very much in love. She plays her hand across Pippa’s lower belly, heart squeezing at the way Pippa’s body responds. Moving higher, she trails her fingers over the curve of Pippa’s breast, pushes herself up on an elbow to watch how it looks in her palm.

Her fingers explore, holding off until Pippa’s keening, eyes still shut. And when she makes a sharp noise, Hecate takes pity and finds her nipple, thumbing it softly, marveling at the texture before rolling it between her fingers.

Pippa cries out and surges back against her thigh, and Hecate drops her hand once again to find the spot low on Pippa’s belly and Pippa cries out again, hips rolling helplessly.

“Pippa,” Hecate breathes, and Pippa blinks her eyes open and then closes them, a small sleepy smile playing at the corners of her mouth as she moves. Hecate watches as her fingers press against the sheets in utter surrender. She makes a little whining noise that is entirely too adorable and Hecate can’t help but smile.

She focuses her attention on that small patch of skin again until Pippa is arching, and gasping, until she reaches out to still Hecate’s hand. She whines again, so sleepy, so aroused, and Hecate can feel her against her thigh and finally gives in, hand sliding lower still to slip between Pippa’s legs.

Pippa gasps out her name and Hecate settles back behind her, pulling her closer as she brings her higher and higher. Hips roll frantically against her hand and Pippa makes helpless, breathy noises of pleasure until at last she comes on a stuttering whine, body tensing as she trembles apart in Hecate’s arms.

Once she’s calm, Hecate tails her hand back up, fingers sticky against Pippa’s stomach and Pippa arches again, trembles again, and Hecate presses her thigh back between her legs to help her through it.

“Oh,” Pippa sighs, going limp. She lays utterly still for a moment and then turns in Hecate’s arm, keeping Hecate between her legs as her arms slip around her.

In the moonlight, Pippa’s eyes glow as they blink sleepily open. “Are you going to wake me up like that often?”

She pushes herself a little more against Hecate’s thigh as another aftershock chases through her.

“I should very much like to,” Hecate whispers, unfamiliar with the tenderness that rises in her as she smooths back the hair that curls around Pippa’s face.

Pippa kisses her in the corner of her mouth. “Good,” she yawns. “Thank you.”

Hecate laughs a little. “Thank you?”

Pippa’s blush is silver and her eyes glitter. “It’s rather good manners to say 'thank you' when someone has done something nice for you.”

The size of the grin that stretches across her face must be awfully uncustomary, but she’s learning that it might not always be the case. Not anymore. She cups Pippa’s chin and guides her in for a kiss.

“Thank you,” she whispers after. And Pippa buries her face in her neck.

They lay together in the moonlight, and Hecate is suddenly struck with a thought. She rolls Pippa gently off her her, scooting to the edge of the bed before rising. She stands in the middle of the floor and lets the moon wash over her.

“Hiccup?”

Pippa’s voice is still tinged with sleep, but when Hecate turns and stretches out a hand for her she pushes herself up and comes willingly.

“What are you up to?”

With a snap Hecate has dressed them and she tugs Pippa over the the unlatched window, broomstick appearing in her hand.

“What -”

“Shhh,” Hecate hushes her. “You know I like to be mysterious.” She pushes the window open more fully and gestures Pippa onto the broom.

“It’s the middle of the night. I say, Miss Hardbroom, this is most irregular.” Pippa smirks at her but takes her seat. “And, darling, you’re not mysterious to me. Not after tonight.”

She pulls Hecate in and kisses her soundly.

“Well,” she sniffs as she straightens, pleased but playing up the part, “I do have a reputation to uphold.”

“Yes, of course,” Pippa eyes brighten as Hecate comes and perches behind her on the broom. “But nighttime broomstick rides? Whatever would the girls think.”

“At least I dressed us,” Hecate murmurs, breath hot in Pippa’s ear. She’s delighted when Pippa shivers. “Now, let me have my surprise.”

“Alright,” Pippa says agreeably, leaning back against her, and Hecate guides the broom out the window.

The night air is cool and crisp, the cherry blossoms blooming silver and white in the moonlight. Everything is silent and softened, and Hecate feels like she might be in a painting as she takes the broom higher. The night is so clear, the stars glittering like pale jewels, and she feels like she can breath freely. Up here. In the sky. With Pippa.

Having Pippa in her arms causes her heart to feel as if a large bubble of light is glowing brighter and brighter around it, threatening to burst. Holding Pippa is familiar and new all at once, and she rests her chin on Pippa’s shoulder as the word falls away and they rise into the night.

She takes them higher, and then higher still, until they’re so close to the moon that she feels they could reach out and touch it.

Pippa turns to look at her then, tears in her eyes.

“What I feel for you,” Hecate rasps, watching Pippa’s smile grow, watching the hope and love in her eyes grow. Just as it grows in her own heart. “Isn’t ever going to change.”

They hang suspended in the sky, the moon a giant pearl before them. And Hecate reaches out and touches Pippa’s face.

It feels like coming home.

______

It’s with a heavy heart that she returns to Cackle’s Sunday night. Body aching from hours spent making up for lost time with Pippa. Heart aching from having to leave her.

And yet she’s full. Heart full up of love, body full up of careful attentions. Soul fuller and more at peace than it ever has been.

She can hardly look Ada in the eye when she checks in on how the weekend had gone without her. But the castle appears to be standing, which -  for now - is good enough for her. She keeps the meeting brief, thankful that Ada doesn’t pry.

She does, however, transfers to her room rather face Dimity at all when she sees her in the hall, knowing Dimity would offer no such reprieve.

Her chambers are dark. Too quiet. Too empty. Too without Pippa.

Swallowing, she deposits her broom and undoes her cloak, waving a hand until it materializes on the hook by the door. She takes off her hat and sets it aside, casting her mind around for something to do to fill her time now that she’s alone again.

Huffing out at sigh and feeling quite silly at her newfound dependency - though she realizes, she really ought not to complain about it. Not when it’s what she’s always wanted. And not when she always has in one way or another been depended on Pippa in some manner, though she’s spent decades convincing herself otherwise - she approaches her desk and drops down before it, feeling sorry for herself and rather foolish.

There are a number of letters that have arrived in her absence, and she mindlessly thumbs through the correspondences, the lecture invites, the grievances of concerned parents. There’s a letter with no marking and she frowns, flipping it over and breaking the seal.

The paper opens to a pale sheet of pink, black script slanting it’s way across the page in a familiar hand.

_Dear Hecate,_

_You’re currently asleep (I fear I’ve worn you out, but I must confess that I’m not too terribly sorry about it!) and we’ve only just talked about how hard it will be to be apart during the week at our respective schools. Know that you’ll never be far from my heart or my mind. That my love goes where you go. That distance or time apart can’t change that. We’ve already tested the theory, you see._

_Have a good week, my darling. I look forward to Saturday when I can hold you, and kiss you, and make you feel all manner of unmentionable things. I know you’re blushing while reading this so I’ll save the details for our mirror call (and, darling, please call as soon as you get this and let me know you’re home?)._

_I love you._

_Always,_

_Your Pippa._

_P.S._ _Consider this the first of many love letters. It’s high time, my love. It’s high time._

There’s a press of lipstick beneath the postscript, and Hecate bites down hard on her lower lip at the warm, pulsing joy that rising within her. Her fingers pass over the inscription and the kiss, cheeks flushing.

She turns to her mirror, eager to see Pippa again, even if only as a reflection.

Pippa’s right.

It is high time.

And she won’t waste a moment of it.

 


End file.
